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    Art . IV . —A Brief Account of the Proceedings of the Commit tee , appointed in the year \ 195 3 by the yearly meeting of Friends ^ of Pennsylvania , New Jersey ^ He . for promoting the Improvement and Gradual Civilization of the Indian natives . 8 vo , pp . 48 . Phillips and Fardon . 1806 *

    These pamphlets contain accounts of two missions of civilization , undertaken by the Quakers of America among their Indian neighbours : the first

    instances on record of a religious body attempting to civilize , without any immediate design of converting , the Heathen . The uccess of the attempt , contrasted with the failure of the Otaheiian

    and other missions , confirms us in the opinion ^ we have always entertained ^ that a considerable degree of civilization , and of

    social and mental improvement , is absolutely necessary to the reception of Christianity . The gospel is superior to Pagan superstitions , in the first place , only so far as it is more reasonable , or in other words as it contains more truth ; and in the second place , inasmuch only as it supplies more powerful motives to virtue . Rut the mind of a savage is not sufficiently opened to distinguish truth from error , or to perceive the beauty of the one and the deformity cf the other ; nor his heart sufficiently softened to feel the force of purely spiritual motives * How can he sin in whose mind are associated scarcely more ideas than are found in that

    of a child of two years old , u reason upon righteousness , temperance and judgment to eome ? ' * How can he who in the summer is unmmdfiU of , and

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    makes no provision for , the approach of winter , be expected to liVe under the habitual influence of the hope of a future life ? Experience may however supersede argument : for there is no

    example in the history of thi& world , of any considerable number of barbarians , really such , becoming permanent Christians , without passing through the intermediate stage of civilization .

    Those who are so denominated in the New Testament , were not barbarous in our acceptation of the term , that is , uncivilized ^ wild and savage , but merel y foreigners to the Greeks and

    Romans , in whose haughty modes of speech a persop of an unknown or distant nation was designated as a barbarian , a stranger as an enemy .- —The negro listens to an European missionary with

    deference and respect , and is in some measure obedient to him , because he is an European ; but let him withdraw and leave the negro to himself , and the supposed convert will relapse into an idolater . The South-sea-is lander receives the

    Christian propagandist with courtesy and attention , because he associates with the person of the missionary the idea oi riches ; but let him once perceive that his instructor has exhausted hi * wealth , and has no move tools or trinkets ., iron or glass , and it is wull if he permits him to dw ^ U

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    4 K 2 ,

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Nov. 2, 1807, page 607, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2386/page/43/